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It was a nice day. The sun was high but not too hot. A gentle breeze kept everything jiving. The sky was a beautiful blue; somewhere between cerulean and baby. The ground was of a very rich quality, easy on the eyes and spotted with patches of rocky ledges and several far off mountains to create a vista right at home in a Western movie.
Vegeta almost felt guilty when he landed heavily on the brown-yellow earth and blood shot out from his mouth to decorate the soil with crimson patterns. Crumbling to his knees and then his front, the Prince of all Saiyans hazily wondered why his chest was getting colder while his breath came and went with the sound, and feeling, of a hand saw. Clutching unconsciously at where his heart struggled beneath his ribs, Vegeta could no longer remember why he was even there to begin with, too engrossed with the agony that was the Heart Virus.
Muffled voices wafted around him like marshmallows; indescribable shape and no real substance. Someone yelling was somewhat audibly through the fog, the pained expressions of one about to die. He had heard that sound countless times in the past, when he had played around when clearing a planet for the PTO instead of killing the locals outright. One of his allies was dying and there was nothing he could do about except listen and wallow in the death that was seeping through his system.
A moment later, he realized that he was the one yelling.
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Gohan was doing his best to keep Android Nineteen at bay, but the mechanized killer's strength was just too overwhelming and the Masenko barrage was completely ineffective against his metallic hide. Taking a huge punch to the face for his troubles, the half saiyan flew backward in the air until crashing into an upraised section of reddish rock.
Resting in the shattered debris, he haggardly pushed himself onto his elbows to view their field. What he saw was just as disheartening as it had been moments before: Goku and Gero were still locked in one-on-one combat, the other Z-Fighters were bum rushing the larger of the two androids to minimal success, and Vegeta was where he had fallen, screaming wordlessly as he shook in the fetal position. In just a few seconds, they're fight had gone from hopeful to disastrous and they were now struggling to survive until minute to minute.
Groaning, the boy clambered back to his feet, coughing as rock dust wafted around him. Feeling torn, he tried to pick which fight to rejoin but it seemed like his participation would be redundant no matter what. More than anything, they needed super saiyans for this battle, but one wasn't enough to fend off the threats.
"Darn it," he muttered to himself, fists shaking at his sides. The frustration was nearly overwhelming, filling him with a sense of uselessness and even resentment towards his father and Vegeta; they had all that power and he didn't, but they were still losing and the odds of survival were dwindling rapidly. "I can't let them win." The declaration felt weak, so he tried again. "I won't LET THEM WIN!"
Starting to run back into the conflict with Nineteen, he was stopped mid step when a large power signature unexpectedly appeared on his senses. Looking back to where he could feel it approaching, Gohan watched as a small speck in the sky grew larger and larger until it was apparent that it was a person flying towards the battlefield. A second later, he recognized the lavender hair.
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Yamcha was preparing to block a full-on punch with his arms, not expecting it to work at all, when a crescent arc of light passed by very close to them. Looking to the side, the scar faced baseball player was startled to see the mysterious saiyan from the future who had given them the warning in the first. He was already ascended, spikes of hair protruding at diagonal angles and waves of power flowing off of him in torrents. The wide-bladed longsword he carried was unsheathed and he was holding it with both hands.
A moment later, half of Nineteen's fist slid free from the rest, sliced clean through with that surprise attack. Looking at his maimed appendage in apathy, the behemoth android took stock of the new opponent, instantly recognizing the presence of a super saiyan and the identity of Vegeta's son. Oil spurted from his wound like blood, but he paid it no mind, focusing only on demi-saiyan before him.
"Was getting bored." He cackled in his unnerving rumble of a voice, tensing the artificial tissues and servos beneath his equally synthesized epidermis in preparation. The battle information on Vegeta hadn't fully covered how strong or skilled he had been, so it had been a surprise to find himself so evenly matched with the saiyan, as well as a thrill. Most of Nineteen's thought patterns were based on the saiyans themselves, so the drive for battle and power was practically the soul reason for his existence.
"Gohan told me that Vegeta was fighting you when he was incapacitated by the virus," Trunks pointed out evenly. The rage and grief that was running through him were carefully hidden behind the cold calm he had erected, but the heat within his veins was crying for vengeance. "I don't recognize you as one of the androids I know, but I'll still scrap you all the same."
Nineteen laughed at that, bass drum sound waves that shook the air. He said nothing else, a being of few words, but instead readied himself for combat against the warrior from the future. That proved to be a mistake as a spiraling beam of energy abruptly speared through lowerd chest. Not much damage was done against the non-organic being, but it was certainly a surprise for both of them.
Hovering a little ways away, Piccolo lowered his two smoking fingers slowly, glaring fiercely towards the android. The other Z-Fighters were at his shoulders, Tien and Gohan on one side, Yamcha and Krillin on the other, all of whom had powered up as high as they could go. Altogether, they were a sizeable force, but even with Trunks they didn't measure up to Vegeta's strength as a super saiyan, and Nineteen knew it.
"Kill All!" He crowed, enraged at the second sneak attack on him in a row. His body bulked out as the inhibitors Gero had installed were bypassed completely and the full might of the saiya-droid was unleashed. Electrical bolts of energy crawled along skin and a terrible rumble shook the Earth a hundred so feet below them.
To Trunks' surprise, the other warriors didn't seem particularly alarmed by this release. Breathing slowly, they appeared to be calming themselves rather than trying to hype themselves up.
"Gohan," Piccolo spoke up, looking over his shoulder at his student and friend, "get Vegeta out of here and back to Bulma. She's the only one that can help him now and being on the battlefield won't do him any good."
"Right," Gohan responded after a few seconds hesitation. They could see that he didn't want to want to leave, but his better judgment won out and he dropped down towards the fallen saiyan.
"You with us kid?" Yamcha asked the lavender haired saiyan, stretching out his fingers methodically.
"Yes, but are you sure that this isn't too much for you guys to handle? He's a super saiyan level opponent."
"Don't worry about us," Krillin chuckled. "We've got a few new tricks up our sleeves. Ready guys?"
"Whenever you are," Tien answered, smiling despite himself.
Nineteen had grown frustrated with the lull in the fight and decided to destroy them all at once. Pointing a palm at the half-saiyan and the other towards the grouped up fighters, pale orbs of energy blossomed into existence, building in intensity and size by the second. Trunks readied his Brave Sword for the attack, but the Z-Fighters continued to remain calm.
"We haven't had a lot of time to practice, so don't be careless," Piccolo instructed.
"DIIIIIEEE!" Nineteen roared, firing his energy blasts at the same time. Trunks was the closest and so had to react first, swinging his sword upward to shear the attack in half, each portion falling away around him to detonate without doing any damage.
As the other sphere closed in on the Earth's defenders, they unified their voices into a single word, louder even than the onrush of manufactured ki energy:
"KAIOKEN!"
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Nearly a full mile away, Goku and Gero were grappling ferociously, both trying to overpower the other. It was a display of mechanical might versus mortal strength, and it seemed to be surprisingly equal for the moment.
"Well," Gero hissed, eyes darting over Goku's shoulder for a second before returning to the aquamarine, "it seems that the once mighty prince of all saiyans has fled the battlefield with your troublesome son."
Goku had felt the two powers leaving and had a pretty good idea where they were going. More than anything, he only wanted for Gohan to be safe and for Vegeta to be healed. The royal saiyan couldn't die, not now. After all that had happened, Goku couldn't handle being responsible for Vegeta's death, especially since…
"Does that mean you carry your dead off of the battlefield? That seems rather inefficient." Gero's snide remark brought fury bubbling up through Goku's fear and that gave him just enough of an edge to push the elder androids arms back until he could slam his forehead into the professor's and knock him back. Unloading with a storm of rapid fire punches and kicks, the Earth raised saiyan battered Gero for several seconds before an instinctive ki blast gave the android a second to regain his defense.
Charging back in, Goku threw a wide punch towards Gero's head but found himself facing only empty air. Before he could relocate his opponent, a foot drove into his back and knocked him down into the ground. Rolling to the side, Goku narrowly dodged a follow up stomp that would have broken his arm if it had connected. Pushing off of the ground, Goku sprung onto his feet in time to block a flat punch with crossed arms and duck under a sweeping kick. Jumping backwards rapidly, the saiyan defended himself from the android's onslaught, waiting for an opportunity to strike back.
That chance came when a sudden burst of power buffeted them both, wind sweeping the dirt off of the ground in waves. Not looking towards the origin point, Goku knocked a distracted palm strike away and drove his fist as hard as he could into Gero's ribs, the feeling of splintering metal detectable through the clothes and exterior. Reeling from the pain, Gero couldn't avoid the next puch which took him clear off his feet and crashing back first into the rocky plain.
Now with a second to spare, Goku looked upwards and saw the collective Z-Fighter's with the stranger from the future teaming up against the hulking android, the humans and namekian aflame with the crimson aura of the Fist of God. With the multiplication in power, the fight was suddenly evened out and Nineteen was hard pressed to keep them all away. Even a direct hit from Yamcha, the numerically weakest of them, while using Kaioken was enough to unbalance him and leave him open to another's attack. Knocking some of them back with yet another backhand, he turned to face the super saiyan and block a sword strike, but that left him vulnerable to a missile kick from a speeding Krillin.
It seemed like the Z-Fighter's had the advantage, but Goku knew all too well that the Kaioken was draining and they couldn't keep the effort up for very long, especially with their limited experience with it. Krillin had approached him a few months back to ask for the training and Goku had agreed, but he wasn't the best at instructing so he wasn't sure about the results until now. Tien seemed to be the most adept with the technique, for some reason.
"You're not going to win," Goku uttered darkly to Gero as he got back to his feet. "With all the strength you built into yourself and that guy up there, you lack conviction in a fight, and that will be your undoing."
"You put so much stock in that notion of 'will beats all' that you delude yourselves into believing yourselves superior, ignorant of the world around you." Gero was brushing dirt off his puffy orange sleeves in irritation, though Goku could see the anger that simmered just below the surface of his composure. "We androids are creations with certified power, not miraculous flukes of fate that allow us to overcome naturally stronger obstacles. I designed these bodies with the soul purpose of overwhelming saiyans and their affinity for battle; that is why we shall not lose to your inferiority."
"I guess some machines really are heartless," Goku shook his head sadly. He knew that this fight would never truly be over until either of them was dead. But he had every reason to keep fighting whereas Gero didn't, and that would have to be what gave him an advantage. "For all the people that you've hurt, or would be hurt because of your actions." He flared out his golden aura and managed to eek out a fraction more power than before, "I'm putting a stop to you androids here and now!"
Kicking off of the ground with enough force to crumple the earth like cardboard, he was in front of Gero in an instant and planting the heel of his foot directly into his shoulder. Spinning away, the mad doctor took to flight and pressed upward to buy himself a moments reprieve and regain his control. But just as before, Goku was suddenly right in front of him with a double handed strike halfway between them.
Jarred from the blow, the twentieth android fired off numerous ki bullets at the oncoming saiyan, each of which could wipe out a smallish city easily. But the super saiyan just plowed through them like they were nothing, deflecting most off of his aura before they even came within a few feet of him. Seeing his efforts thwarted, Gero decided it was time to use his trump card. He hadn't though either he or Nineteen would have use of the function, what with their tremendous strength and all, but the two saiyans and the others had proven to be stronger than anticipated so it was no time to be stringent.
Allowing Goku to catch up, Gero waited for the other man to swing a predictable punch towards his face. Grabbing the arm at the wrist, Gero initiated the energy drain modules in palms. Siphoning off the immense strength of the saiyan as quickly as he could, the android blocked the next attack that came; grabbing that arm as well to ensure his work would go uninterrupted. The affects became quickly noticeable as Goku began to pant from exertion as they hung suspended in the air; the raging eddies of the parallel fight rushing over them.
"Feel despair!" Gero crowed at his mortal enemy, emboldened by the fortunate turn of events. Even now he could feel his power stores rapidly recharging from all the power that Goku possessed as though the past half hour of fighting had never occurred.
Not answering verbally, Goku brought his legs up and locked them on either side of Gero's left shoulder and began to push with all of his might.
"Struggle all you want boy, but as an android you can be sure that as long as I've got a hold on you then I will never let you-"
Continuing with what was fast becoming a trend, Gero was interrupted by his opponent in an unexpected and unwelcome way: continuing to push with his legs and pull with his arms, Goku twisted around in a very fast corkscrew that pretty much extracted Gero's entire arm like Bionicle piece (which he kind of was, come to think of it).
Screaming in surprise and whatever pain his processors allotted, Gero groped at the empty socket futiley, shock making him lose his grip on the saiyan without thought. No sooner had he done this that Goku grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him directly into a punch to the face- the useless and severed arm falling to the ground below, forgotten.
"Yamcha told us about your energy stealing technique on the way over. Why do you think none of us have been using Ki based attacks at long range?" Goku stated as he threw Gero away from himself and fired just such a blast at his vulnerable side. It exploded upon impact and sent the deranged professor hurtling in a smoking arc towards his compatriot and creation. Caught up in the unleashed melee that was going on, Gero couldn't shield himself from all of the attacks he stumbled into and was battered around viciously, often by his own ally, before being ejected from the struggle like a cork from a bottle.
Turning on an axis, he spotted Goku once more coming towards him at full speed, ready to disassemble the cyborg without any intention of putting him back together. Finally facing the unbearable truth that he had been bested, Gero put on his own burst of speed to avoid a final confrontation.
"Nineteen!" His call got the attention of the other android and most of the Z-Fighters fighting him. The furious assault of half a dozen kaioken powered martial artists had left its mark in a multitude of physical wounds and damaged components. One eye had been scraped off all the camouflaging skin and the solid red occulus was clearly visible. "We need to retreat for the time being! I need to make repairs and recalculations."
Nineteen looked suitably angry at having his fight cut so short, but he attempted to comply with his maker's demands. Enroute, he was beset upon by the Z-Fighters yet again and he responded with equal force while trying to depart. Grabbing Piccolo's fist in his overlarge hand, Nineteen rammed his head into the namekian's face with a wet crunch and kicked Trunks in the sword arm, causing him to drop the weapon.
Krillin tried to tackle the behemoth in the back and topple him, but he was sidestepped before he could make contact and a driving elbow caught him in the neck. Tien had split into two and each were hammering away at him from either side, but the division in power meant that the kaioken pretty much just made each copy as strong as the regular Tien and that proved no challenge for Nineteen to bash away.
Trunks came back with a bursting charge of golden ki energy built up between his hands, ready to unload the cataclysmic power straight into the android's face. But the towering albino disappeared in a blur of speed, leaving Trunks desperately looking for his enemy and not seeing the karate chop from behind that rocked his brain inside of his skull. Vision blackened from pain and discombobulation, the half-saiyan was unable to defend himself from the ascending kick that took him full in the ribs and rocketed him upwards for less than an instant before Nineteen grabbed him by the back of his Capsule Corporation jacket.
Slamming a punch into the time traveler, Nineteen rather enjoyed the feeling and did it several more times, each blow causing a bit more blood to flow from the youth's nose and mouth. Reeling his arm far back for the coup de grace, Nineteen grinned maliciously as he prepared to demolish the second member of the saiyan hierarchy that day.
"KAIOKEN TIMES TWO!"
Yamcha shot straight up between them, the recovered Brave Sword in his hands as he executed a mighty uppercut slash that tore straight into the surprised androids flesh deeply. Before he could be consumed by the exertion, the former bandit lowered the magnitude of his kaioken and threw the sword over Nineteen's head and to the waiting Piccolo.
"KAIOKEN TIMES THREE!"
After countless hours of meditation, the namekian was capable of pushing his body to this extreme limit in short bursts. He did so now as the shining blade drove through the thick tissues of the android's arm, the one that held the Trunks, and sheared upward to sever most of the connective materials and leaving the arm to hang nearly useless.
"GraaAAGGHHH!" Nineteen roared at his assaulters flailing with his good arm at the green warrior and only just missing. Trunks backed away quickly, not believing his eyes as the tides turned once more in their favors. While these two weren't nearly as powerful as the androids of his time, they were still incredibly dangerous and for non-saiyans to be fighting one of them was astounding.
Piccolo absorbed an entire wild punch with the blade of the borrowed sword, using the force to fling it behind him seemingly at random. But a crimson streak of power shot toward the android at incredible speed, claiming the sword without diverting its path. Tien positioned the tip of the blade forward, effectively turning him into an arrow, before shouting out his own words of defiance.
"KAIOKEN…TIMES FOUR!"
Though he was talented with the technique, there was no way he could maintain this effort for longer than a second or two. This proved more than enough time as he drove the Brave Sword all the way through Nineteen's chest, exactly where Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon had pierced him earlier. With the force behind the blade not stopping, the former assassin pushed his entire body clean through the android, mirroring Goku's triumph over the Demon King Piccolo years before.
"Guh-" was all Nineteen managed to get out, groping at the gaping hole in his huge chest. He could still function, but every single system still intact had taken a massive nose-dive and only that emergency reserves were keeping him activated. Seeing one of his prized creations so grievously damaged Gero shrieked out in anger and dismay.
"Let's end this!" Trunks shouted as he rose above the pale killer machine, the energy blast from earlier once again primed to fire, but now Krillin was hovering right beside him and pouring his energy into the half-saiyan for the extra kick that they would need to irrevocably finish the job.
"NO! Stop!" Gero reached forward as though to stop them, but Goku took advantage of his enemies distraction and planted a punch into his jaw.
"You think that you can come here and try to kill us without giving us a shred of mercy and expect some from us when the roles are reversed?" The super saiyan snarled, uncharacteristic ferocity making the machinist flinch away.
"Here's a going away present from my father:" Trunks shouted as his attack reached its zenith, coalescing into a highly compact orb no larger than a basketball, "BIG BURNING ATTACK!"
Nineteen looked up just as the yellow energy reached him, unable to reach up and absorb the ki with his maimed arms. For just an instant in time, they could all clearly see the expression of unfiltered fear fill his terrible face, proving once and for all whether or not machines could feel it.
And then the attack exploded into him.
With a blast radius rivaled only by one of Frieza's Supernovas, the entire area was washed with an immaculate light that forced all to avert their eyes from the spectacle for half a minute. When at last natural sunlight began to fill in for the luminous ki eruption, a gigantic mushroom cloud had blossomed into existence where Nineteen had previously been. Presently, the roar of the exposion slowly came back to them, momentarily muted by the sheer force of the blast.
A hollow and metallic clanking sounded up from the ground. Looking down, everyone attendant watched as the only thing left of Android Nineteen bounced several times before rolling to a halt. The composite skull was missing a large chunk from its sleek black surface and only one of the red eyes still shown, but that shrank down and disappeared after a moment-finally announcing the ultimate destruction of the berserker.
"This…this cannot be-" Gero sputtered, staring down his hooked nose at the decapitated remains of one of his ultimate fighting machines. "Your strength was not supposed to be anywhere near what it is!"
"Will beats all," Goku responded coldly, parroting back Gero's words from earlier. Advancing slowly on the one armed cyborg, the Earth's saiyan prepared himself to do what he detested above all else: taking a life. He would have done anything to prevent it in any other case, but with all Gero had done and his own insecurities about Vegeta's health, the greater of two evils was the clearest choice to him right then. None of the other Z-Fighters were going to stop him, recovering from their frenzied fight with the brute as they were, because they also knew that it had to be done.
"W-wait!" Gero held up his remaining hand, desperation coming over him as he tried frantically to concoct an escape route from this situation. "This isn't like you! Son Goku never kills a defenseless man!"
"I never kill those who can not harm anyone else ever again. You will just come back again and again, killing anyone who gets caught in your blind and petty revenge." Goku continued to walk unhindered across the scorched earth, each footfall seemingly the chiming of a death knell.
"I-I-I- I'm sorry!" Gero tripped in his backpedaling and landed on his back. Dragging himself backward with the one arm, he kept trying to sway Goku to no avail. "I'm sorry! I see now that what I have done was wrong. All those years wasted just to kill one man. I was an abomination, a monster in the guise of a man. You have shown me what it means to enjoy life and I wish only to-urk!"
Goku had crossed the distance in one skip and was now pressing his foot into the androids throat, pinning him to the spot and silencing his pleading. An ominous charge of yellow energy was playing around the saiyan's right hand, slowly building up in pressure to become a full-fledged energy wave.
"Frieza said practically the same thing, and Mercenary Tao before him. As soon as I showed them mercy, they tried to stab me in the back but just managed to destroy themselves. I'm not even going to give you the chance." Pointing his palm at the trapped professor, Goku prepared to finish what he had inadvertently started over twenty years before. "Kami forgive me," he whispered.
And then they felt it. Every single one of the Z-Fighters present all looked up in unison towards the same spot in the horizon. Their energy sensing abilities were extremely sensitive after their high octane fights, and so it was easy for them to feel it when Vegeta's power level dropped to nothing for several unbearable seconds. It could only mean that his heart had momentarily succumbed to the ravaging disease, only to catch itself at the last second and prolong the prince's life a little while longer.
It reminded the Earth's special forces exactly why they weren't fighting along side the other saiyan and how close he was to the brink. But it also proved to be just the distraction that Gero needed. Activating his 'Android Barrier', he blasted the unsuspecting Goku away from him and sprang to his feet, already running at mach speeds towards the nearby mountains and plateaus. Firing a wide ki blast behind himself for good measure, the nefarious doctor managed to disappear amongst the landscape, his power undetectable to the warriors.
"Damn it!" Trunks cursed, attempting to take off after the mastermind, but his huge expenditure of energy a short while ago caught up to him and he collapsed to his knees, super saiyan aura vanishing silently. Everyone else but Goku were likewise too exhausted or injured to give chase, but the full blood lingered in the dirt, fingers carving grooved in the loose dust.
"We need to follow him now or lose him for good," Piccolo announced, summing up their thoughts neatly. Everyone extracted their personal senzu beans and ate them to replenish their lost energy, Krillin and Yamcha splitting one since the bandit had used his earlier to come back from the impalement in the city. "Here," Piccolo said flatly, holding out one more bean to Trunks. "It was Vegeta's, but he doesn't have any use for it now so I took it."
"Thanks," Trunks responded, but he still hesitated for a second before accepting and chewing it. The rejuvenation was exhilarating, but the thrill was dampened overall by the mood amongst them. Without another word, they all took of in pursuit of Dr. Gero, hoping to catch sight of him from a low altitude.
"He's your father." It wasn't at all a question Goku said, but a simple pronouncement of fact. "You're Trunks from the future."
Looking back, the lavender haired youth realized that he'd let that information slip out on accident, but it really wasn't important to keep it secret anymore, especially after encountering Gohan.
"Yes. I am the last living saiyan in my home time, every one else being killed by the androids before I ever got to know them. Gohan helped to raise and train me, but he too eventually fell. So my mother invented a way for me to travel back in time to alter the course of history and save everyone who's left on Earth. But these aren't the androids that I've known."
"Different androids?" Krillin inquired, pulling up slightly to address swordsman. "Were they changed when you came back in time?"
"I don't know. Nothing is going as it should have, even with my interference. We just need to see how this unfolds."
It was a grim and austere advisement, but none of them could think of anything better to add, so they flew on in silence.
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Gohan was squatting down in the back of the air car Bulma had extracted from her capsule case. He was watching helplessly as Vegeta thrashed on the pallet they had made for him, screaming incoherently and sweating buckets of ice cold mixed with inferno hot. In the front seat, Bulma was gripping the steering stalks with white knuckles forcing herself to focus out the windshield and take them back to capsule corp. as fast as was possible. Trunks was unnerving silent in his baby seat, seemingly aware of the thick tension and emotions that were crammed into that small space with them.
"Hey Vegeta," Gohan spoke up when the screaming hit a lull and was taken over by uncontrollable shaking. "When he showed up, that man from the future told me who he was." The boy hoped that his words were reaching wherever the prince was beneath the agonies of the heart virus, aiming to grant some form of relief. "He's Trunks- your son from the future. He's grown up really strong and can even become a super saiyan like you."
He heard Bulma gasp in surprise at that news. It was an enormous shock to hear that your child, not yet out of diapers, would hold the fate of the future in his hands, alone. But before she could speculate on this any longer, West City came into view and she plotted the most direct course for home, not even pulling back on the thrusters in the slightest. "Hang on!" She shouted over he shoulder as they entered a steep dive. But she had no idea what they could do when they got Vegeta to the infirmary.
She just had to hope that a solution could be found before…it was too late.
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Impressively, the solid metal door didn't' disintegrate under Piccolo's blast, merely blasting off of its housings and falling inward like a felled tree. In the dust kicked up by the clamor, they all saw Dr. Gero standing not too far into the secret lab, staring at them in anger and shock. Behind him were two more people, about the same height with shared features. One was a brunette boy with an orange bandana around his neck, black shirt over a white long-sleeve, blue jeans and blue shoes with the socks proudly pulled up the legs. The other was a gorgeous blond woman wearing a cutoff denim jacket with matching skirt, black and white long sleeved shirt and nondescript boots.
"It's them!" Trunks declared heatedly at the exact same time that the boy unexpectedly beheaded Gero with a swipe of his hand. The Z-Fighters reeled at the action, watching in horror as the severed head fell not too far away and came to a rest just a few feet away from Krillin's feet. What made it all the more worse was when the head spoke, as though nothing had happened.
"You ungrateful terrors! I give you power and this is how you repay me? I should have scrapped the both of you the first chance I got!" His tirade continued for another moment until the same boy jumped forward and brought his foot straight through Gero's head, killing the Red Ribbon Army in one motion.
Once more, everyone was shocked speechless at the ruthless display, watching both of the new androids with concern and caution.
"Was I the only one here tired of his rambling?" the brunette asked whimsically, straightening up and backing a few steps away from the crushed remains. "I mean, c'mon, were none of you thinking of doing exactly that?" He looked amongst the faces of the assembled warriors with a dangerous smile, not even pausing when he recognized Goku.
"Well now what are we supposed to do, Seventeen?" the girl asked, crossing her arms in boredom and casting her gaze further into the lab. "Killing Gero was the only thing we've wanted to do for years, and now you've done it in five seconds."
"We could fight these guys," Seventeen suggested, raising an eyebrow in amusement at the worried looks he received. "After all, the old man wanted us to kill them eventually so they must be good for something other than standing around and… hey, are you even listening Eighteen?" He looked backward towards his numerical superior, seeing her standing over a large, mechanical casket like the ones they had just come out of. "Whatchu' got?" He walked casually away from the assembled saiyans, humans and namekian to stand opposite from the blond and look down at the container.
"I think it was the old coots last project before us," Eighteen guessed, noticing the large number '16' stenciled on the side. "He said that after our upgrades he wouldn't need another model in action."
"You actually listened to him?" Seventeen looked incredulously at her, smiling again. "I usually just tried to remember what rock bands I liked and imagined the lyrics instead of his techno-babble."
"Not much else to do when he had you on the table for ten hours straight to recalibrate this and that. Besides, you might actually pick up the odd useful tidbit here and there."
Tien cleared his throat stereotypically to remind the pair that there were still six guys standing in the doorway. Looking up, the androids blinked in unison.
"What do you plan on doing now?" Goku asked for his friends, standing tall to show whatever confidence he had left. Neither he nor Trunks had transformed yet, but they were waiting on a hair trigger for something to happen.
"Whatever we want, I suppose," Seventeen drawled, leaning against Sixteen's pod. "We could kill all of you, but we don't really see why we should do that right now. Besides, this guy here needs some release so we're gonna pop the seal and have our own happy ending."
Silence.
"Um…" Eighteen started while trying to cover her smile/grimace.
"Realized it the moment I said it," Seventeen admitted, expression unchanging, but a hint of embarrassment showing through. Trying to put that behind them as quickly as he could, he clapped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. "Alright, here's the idea: Eighteen an' I won't perform hexahedral 'Murder-Death-Kill's right this instant because we want to free our big brother. Would any of you care to volunteer to help?"
More silence filled the space. Trunks was a bundle of nerves and was sure he would have snapped if it hadn't been for the calming presence of Goku next to him. He had no idea if they could all take on either of the androids, but it was without a doubt that if they set that last android free it would be the end of all of them. Then again, what choice did they possibly have?"
"I'll help." The quiet was shattered by the simple announcement, shaking all of them from their silent speculations. Krillin stepped forward, doing an admirable job of hiding his fear beneath a calm resolve. Trunks was about to step forward-and do what, he wasn't sure- but Yamcha's hand landed on his shoulder. Looking back at the fellow warrior in surprise, Trunks saw that the ex-bandit was shaking his head silently. What he meant by it was lost on the half-saiyan, but he decided to keep his peace for the moment.
"Splendid." Seventeen clapped his hands together once more, glad that someone had said something; a devout hater of awkward silences to the very end. "Well come on over and have a look-see and try and find what doesn't make this whole thing go 'boom'." Krillin stared with gaping mouth at the dark haired android. "Yeah, the old man was paranoid like that."
Sidling up to the numbered pod, the shaved monk cast his eyes over the bank of unmarked controls with the eye of someone who had done something like this prior, like adjusting to a new TV remote that had extra features included after Roshi smashed the last one with his weighted turtle shell while trying to do Pilates. Without intention, he happened to look up at Eighteen just as she thumbed a loose strand of hair behind her ear in a totally off-handed way. The simple gesture intrigued him and he found himself hoping that she would do it again, just so he could watch the deliate motion once more.
Coming back to himself, Krillin shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts. He had volunteered because he had had a suspicion that these androids weren't as evil to the core as the ones Trunks had known, and there was a shred of hope in that slim chance. He wanted to make a good impression on them, not drool over the one without any y-chromosome.
Quickly scanning his way through the buttons and controls, he spotted one with black and yellow stripes. Deciding it was probably the self-destruct, he looked to the farthest end from it and instantly spotted a grey button that was a fraction larger than the ones next to it. Throwing off a quick prayer, he thumbed the button and waited for an anxious second to see what would happen.
The hiss of escaping air heralded the unlocking of the pod and the continuation of Krilin's breathing, having unconsciously held it at the last second. The three of them took a step back and watched as the lid of the casket popped out a bit before sliding upwards to reveal the occupant, the Z-Fighters cautiously approaching to get a look inside as well.
What greeted them was almost as much a titan as Nineteen had been. Similarly taller than even Piccolo, Sixteen looked like he had been designed only to crush things into dirt and then to disintegrate that dirt. A flaming red mohawk crowned his oblong skull while a face that may very well have been carved from granite rested with closed eyes. He wore a peculiar vest; lime green with stiff ridges and protruding shoulders in the distant vein of PTO armor. Along with matching boots and a black bodysuit beneath those, he also had the same ring earrings that Eighteen and Seventeen also sported.
"Whoa," Eighteen muttered, surprised by the sight. She had never seen Nineteen and so assumed that they had all been designed to blend in with normal, everyday humans. This one wasn't exactly going to pull off the incognito look any time soon.
At the sound, Sixteen's eyes opened. For a few seconds, they were entirely a hellish red, making him appear positively demonic. But then the light died down and his normal steel-grey irises looked up at the faces looking right back at him. Grabbing either side of his pod, he pulled himself out gracefully; moving with much more ease than should be in such a figure. Standing erect, he didn't say so much as a word, merely observing his two kin and the diminutive warrior between them, being the group directly ahead of him.
"So I take it that you're called Sixteen, huh?" Seventeen started, taking a step forward and putting on his 'too cool for school' air like any self-respecting greaser of the fifties. But Sixteen remained silent at this, stoically standing up ramrod straight and looking at them with unnerving speculation. Miffed but undeterred by this lack of response, Seventeen pointed to himself. "I'm Seventeen. And that lovely bundle of PMS over there is Eighteen, my twin sister."
At that lovely introduction, the blond gave Seventeen the finger and stuck out her tongue in irritation. But Krillin suddenly found the space between he and her to be a lot smaller than he recalled, not to mention stuffy. He had just made the automatic assumption that the two were a couple, if androids could even do that. But Seventeen's revelation and Eighteen's lack or denial fueled a fire he didn't even know was lit, a flame very deep down that heated his heart like the once cold hearth left untended and, with every beat, the warmth carried with his blood to fill his entire body in a solid flow that pressed outward, yearning for a declaration of happiness, of absolute and uninhibited rapture from which nothing would ever shine so brightly under the heavans in his eyes for ever more so long as the memory kept him in its sweet and terrible embrace. He had also, apparently, become a poet.
Outside of Krillin's inexplicable thoughts, Seventeen had tried once more to coax a word or two from his 'Big Brother', as he so called him, but still to no avail.
"Maybe Gero didn't install a voice for him. This guy is a work in progress after all." She looked upward questioningly at the towering android who looked back at her and slowly smiled pleasantly.
"I'm sorry. I was gathering speech data to form my vernacular," Sixteen spoke, surprising every one there. His voice was practically monotone and held a mechanical edge about it, as though it came from a speaker. But it was a strong and masculine voice, very fitting for his large frame. "I am fully capable of communication now."
"See, that's the power of perseverance," Seventeen grinned triumphantly, turning back to wink at Krillin who just shrugged, too focused trying come up with a viable rhyme with 'Android' for the sonnet he was developing in his head. "So what's your story big n' tall?"
"I was created with the singular mission of eliminating Son Goku."
"Hey," Seventeen leaned to the side so as to address the very same saiyan who stood just a few feet away, "looks like you've got another fan."
Sixteen followed his 'brother's' gaze and found himself looking directly at the man he was programmed to kill. Instantly, his gentle nature was subverted by the killer directives that usually held little influence over him. Acting without hesitation, Sixteen crossed his arms and clenched his hands under each elbow. Giving a pull, the hands actually came off, leaving twin ports that looked suspiciously like-
"Hell's Flash!"
With a mighty roar of energy, two pillars of orange energy fired from his arm-cannons and screamed towards the saiyan. Acting on instinct in the face of such an unexpected attack, everyone present bolted for the door, the higher powered grabbing someone weaker than themselves including, much to their mutual surprise, Eighteen pulling Krillin by the neck of his gi towards sunlight.
Behind their rapid escape, the laboratory of Dr. Gero exploded in a violent explosion (yup, I literally decided to write that) as Sixteen's power drilled effortlessly through rock and metal alike. Even the second level beneath the main floor was atomized, taking with it all of the other notes, research and…experiments that Gero had there. Floating high above the thick surrounding forest, Z-Fighters and androids alike were recovering themselves in momentary shock.
"The hell'd he do that for?" Seventeen loudly complained, looking at the smoldering ruin of his bandana and reluctantly letting it blow away with the wind.
"I guess he really wants to kill Goku," Eighteen shrugged, having let go of Krillin as soon as she realized what she was doing. "The Doctor probably made it a priority even over his personal safety."
"He would do that?" Tien asked from nearby, looking at them in surprise and disgust.
"Like I said, he was paranoid like that. If he felt that our lives weren't as important as the mission, he'd make us fight to the death or just hit our kill switches himself." Seventeen responded evenly, though his sister could easily see the anger that dwelt just below that.
"What a monster. I can't blame you for doing what you did, even if it was extreme," Tien looked away as he spoke, remembering a time when he had been fully prepared to kill others for the sake of the Crane Schools objectives.
"Save your pity party for yourselves; look down there." Seventeen pointed at the ruin of the lab, now just a smoking carcass of a mountain. As the choking black vapor was blown away, the rest of them could now see Sixteen reapplying his forearms back into place, completely untouched. "We're not gonna' step in on this one. Have fun."
Sixteen reacquired his target and launched into the air towards them. Trunks and Goku blasted into super saiyan and the others utilized kaioken to boost their strength. This combined effort had been enough to bring down android Nineteen, and this one couldn't possibly be any stronger than the newer model…right?
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AN: And that wraps up chapter 8. I was kind of all over the place with this one, meshing humor with the very solemn situation with Vegeta. If you think I should change anything in my style then please let me know; I'm not very satisfied with it myself and am pretty happy when some kind of criticism lets me learn and evolve to better suit my writing.
Also, when I made a point of saying that the lab was destroyed, I really am saying that 'you-know-who' of this timeline is definitely toast (more like…burnt toast) without any chance of a twentieth unexpected reappearance in a row. I have...plans.
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